Mac Pro Graphics Card with Bootcamp/Windows and Advice

[potato1012]

Hi guys,
My most recent computer was stolen, and for my new computer, I'm considering an older mac pro.

I only plan to run windows 7 or 8 on it because that is what I must use for my job, and I do not care about being able to boot into OS X at any time. I am only considering a Mac Pro because I can get a 2010-2008 model for cheap from where I work.

Basically, I need a bunch of cores (8 or 12, whatever I can get), lots of RAM (16+ GB), and a good workstation graphics card (an ordinary one won't work). Unfortunately, the included cards in these machines are not workstation graphics cards, which is a requirement for my software, so I'll need to get a different card.

Which graphics card will work out of the box with this setup? Do I need to worry about weird compatibility issues with the EFI BIOS if I'm just running windows? Can I get windows installed with the included graphics card in the machine, then just switch to any graphics card and use that?

Thanks!

 

[slughead]

As far as GPU, I believe you can use basically just about anything that fits in a PCIe 16x 2.0 slot (ie: Anything).

 

[MacVidCards]

You may end up wanting a flashed card in that only EFI flashed cards get PCIE 2.0 speeds in Windows. This is true of all Nvidia cards.

For AMD cards there are ways of using resistor mods to enable. I don't know of any real workstation cards with AMD drivers, but you can just do what Apple did and use a 7970. Same device and Vendor id as their D700s. Gotta be a way to hack Windows drivers to enable Firepro status.

 

[Gav Mack]

You may end up wanting a flashed card in that only EFI flashed cards get PCIE 2.0 speeds in Windows. This is true of all Nvidia cards.

For AMD cards there are ways of using resistor mods to enable. I don't know of any real workstation cards with AMD drivers, but you can just do what Apple did and use a 7970. Same device and Vendor id as their D700s. Gotta be a way to hack Windows drivers to enable Firepro status.

A comparison of the d700 drivers and 7970 installed, and registry keys on both systems you could find out and make any necessary changes to the inf file. Like with modding kexts with 10.10 you have to disable signed driver enforcement.

Though I'm sure there will already be modded drivers out there from sites like laptopvideo2go and omegadrivers and they would be probably the first sites I'd check out. If you ask nicely in their forums and provide the necessary strings to stick in the inf no doubt they can help out and add them to one of their builds.

A used pc GTX 680 2/4gb (and some power cables bought on eBay) flashed with the roms in bootcamp which are on this forum will be the easiest and cheapest way to get a decent card going. Most workstation apps have a config file you can mod to enable support as quadro cards are far more expensive..